1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a disk apparatus and disk recording method, particularly capable of recording video information received by a TV receiver, etc. onto an unrecorded disk quickly and easily.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As a disk apparatus and/or disk recording method, there has conventionally been proposed such a technique as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-245767. To describe an example of the technique based on FIGS. 10 and 11, which show a so-called DVD recorder, a disk recorder DR is arranged in a chassis 1 composed of a front panel 1a, a rear panel 1b, and a top panel 1c, the disk recorder DR having: a main chassis 2 fixed within the chassis 1; a tray 4 for placing a disk D thereon that is arranged between both side plates 2a and 2b of the main chassis 2 and is movable in the forward and backward directions “a” and “b” through an opening portion 3 in the front panel 1a; and a drive chassis 5 arranged in the main chassis 2 to be driven in the upward and downward directions “c” and “d” by a vertical driving mechanism 6, the drive chassis 5 being provided with an optical pickup 7 movable in the forward and backward directions “a” and “b” and a spindle motor 9 accompanied with a turntable 8, and a disk chucking mechanism 10 is further provided in such a manner as to face the turntable 8.
The vertical driving mechanism 6 has a cam slider 12 arranged in the front part of the main chassis 2 slidably in the left and right directions “e” and “f” perpendicular to the forward and backward directions “a” and “b”, where a cam shaft 13 provided on the front surface of the drive chassis 5 in a protruding manner is fitted into a cam groove 12a in the cam slider 12, and when the cam slider 12 is slid in the left direction “e” (or the right direction “f”), the drive chassis 5 is driven in the upward and downward directions “c” and “d”. It is noted that the numeral 14 in FIG. 10 indicates tray uplift prevention pieces.
The disk chucking mechanism 10 has a crossbeam 16 laid between the both side plates 2a and 2b of the main chassis 2 and a disk clamper 18 accompanied with a magnet 17 that is arranged on the crossbeam 16 movably within a certain range in the upward and downward directions, the disk clamper 18 being adapted to press and clamp the disk D against the turntable 8 as shown in FIG. 11 (a).
To describe an operating procedure for recording video information received by a TV receiver, etc. onto an unrecorded disk D, the tray 4 is moved in the forward direction “a” to place the unrecorded disk D on the tray 4 thus moved in the forward direction “a” as shown in FIG. 11 (b), and then the tray 4 is moved in the backward direction “b” based on a loading signal to be housed in the chassis 1. Subsequently, when the cam slider 12 is slid in the right direction “f” (or the left direction “e”) to move the drive chassis 5 in the upward direction “c”, the disk D on the tray 4 is lifted by the turntable 8 and rotated by the spindle motor 9 at a high speed, as shown in FIG. 11 (a), to record the information onto the disk D through the optical pickup 7. It will also be appreciated that information that has already been recorded on the disk D can be reproduced and/or deleted.
In such a conventional arrangement as mentioned above, it is necessary to move the tray 4 in the forward and backward directions “a” and “b” to set unrecorded disks D one by one, which not only takes a lot of trouble to get complicated but also causes a relatively large time loss between mounting of a disk and recording by the disk recorder DR. Further, the management of unrecorded disks D tends to be neglected.